Platinum's Home A Hit

Record Firm Says `Why Not' To Chicago-area Hq

May 07, 1997|By Lynn Van Matre, Tribune Staff Writer.

Gold records by Paul McCartney and Elton John vie for space on hallway walls. In the conference room, a state-of-the-art sound system blasts the brand-new rap release "Stop the Gunfight" by Trapp and gunned-down former colleagues Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. A few doors down, artists confer about cover graphics for a Blues Brothers CD due in stores May 20.

Welcome to Platinum Entertainment, which calls itself the world's largest independent record company and is home to hundreds of rock, rap, country, blues and gospel artists, including the Beach Boys, Peter Cetera and recent gospel Grammy winner Cissy Houston.

The company, which began trading publicly on the Nasdaq market last year and recently made headlines when it acquired CD compilation giant K-tel International, could be headquartered in a recording industry music mecca like Los Angeles or Nashville. Instead, Platinum Entertainment's unlikely address is the 14th floor of an office complex just off Butterfield Road in Downers Grove.

Why Downers Grove? "Why not?" asked company founder, chief executive officer and principal stockholder Steve Devick, who started the company as River North Studios in 1985 and reorganized it as Platinum Entertainment in 1991.

"A Chicago-area location is the perfect place for a music company--halfway between New York and Los Angeles. Besides, my house is just a mile away from the office," added Devick, who was raised in Downers Grove and lives in Oak Brook.

Devick, a 1970 graduate of Downers Grove North High School, played bass in Chicago-area bands Tides and the Strauss Brothers in the early and mid-1970s while earning a degree at the Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago. Though he practiced optometry briefly, he soon began concentrating on what he calls "entrepreneurial things." One of his first ventures was Orchard Creek, a five-lot subdivision development in Downers Grove financed with some help from Devick's father, a high school music teacher.

"My dad didn't have a lot of cash lying around, but he co-signed for the loan I took out," Devick recalled.

Several years later, when some old pals from million-selling rock group Survivor asked Devick to help build a recording studio in Chicago, he said yes immediately.

Initially popular with the Chicago advertising jingle community, the state-of-the-art River North recording studio in the old Chez Paree space at 610 N. Fairbanks Court soon attracted rock stars such as Paul McCartney and Billy Idol. The recording studio is now closed, but Devick's businesses are going strong.

The company, which began as a gospel label, rapidly diversified into other musical fields by buying other record companies' catalogs of recordings. It also became part owner of the House of Blues in Chicago.

"Steve understands business demands, but he also has the people skills to relate well to musicians," said Rodney Goldstein, a general partner of Frontenac Co., a Chicago venture capital firm that invested $5 million in Platinum Entertainment. "His vision for consolidating the specialty music business was compelling to us."

"We don't go out to bars looking for unknown bands that we can develop into stars," Devick said. "We plan to do a development deal with House of Blues at some point, but our main focus is on household names with fairly predictable sales."

Signing veteran acts makes good business sense, Devick added, because "the average American consumer is getting older, and a lot of music from the 1960s is still popular.

"There's also a big audience for some '60s artists among teenagers," he said. "I get all of my best musical advice from my daughters, who are 17, 14 and 12, and they like people like Led Zeppelin and Peter Cetera and Southern rock from the '60s and '70s."

Devick's 14-year-old daughter, Ashley, played an important role in Cetera's signing with River North Records, a Platinum Entertainment subsidiary.

"Steve and I met through our daughters about four years ago when we were both staying at the same hotel in Maui," recalled Cetera, who is recording a new CD in Nashville. "We started talking, and Steve told me he had been a big fan of (Cetera's old band) Chicago. He said that if I ever wanted to leave my record company, he would like to make me an offer.

"I was with Warner Bros. at the time, but, as it happened, I was thinking about making a change," Cetera said. "Things progressed from there, and we basically made the deal on a handshake.

"I can be pretty impetuous, but that was the first time I ever did a business deal like that," Cetera said. "But Steve and I both like doing business the old-fashioned way, and we both think it's important to stand up to our end of the bargain. That's something that's hard to find in this business in this day and age."

With company sales expected to reach $130 million this year, Devick said, he wouldn't be surprised if a giant entertainment conglomerate wanted to buy Platinum Entertainment in the future.

"I think that in the long term, we'll be approached by someone," he said. "But if it doesn't happen, that's fine, too."

As for what the next hot sound will be, Devick doesn't pretend to be a prophet.

"I don't have any idea where the music business is going," he said. "We just hope that kids looking for the new edgy music, whatever it is, bring their moms with them into the store. The kid can buy something brand new, and Mom will buy one of our CDs."